To my little sister, dying

When it all started to slip,
you crumbled on the overstuffed sofa and cried,
My hands look so old. Saliva stretched across
the quiet chasm of your mouth. Sobs stormed through.
I reached for you, crumbling too, trying to shake the feeling
you believed your life was not what it was supposed to be,
that your husbands and your church didn’t deliver
what you were promised if you were good
(which you were not, you wearily presumed).
And so you took what you got,
and it was not enough to heal you.

I desperately willed my muscled love Enough
to shine on all your night secrets and patriarchal shame
with such brilliant unflinching beams
that tumors would turn
from your flesh into my light and evaporate
like water in a stagnant desert puddle. I, too, am naïve,
to think I could reach into such rock sheltered shadow, undo
or improve the gorgeous geology of your being.

How could I move the craggy Utah bulges,
shift the polished slots of sky above
your callused years of fear of not
attaining celestial glory, salve
the endless pinpricks of husbandly, venereal betrayals,
ease the guilty infidelities of your throbbing,
wanting more than disease or dependency from
the ones for whom you saved your lust and mud.

Can any sister do this for her sister?  I wanted to.
My blood cried for it, but I am not light or even wind!
Our curving walls are too bent to bend light around,
and the wind just carves us deeper. So I am lost
in endless slot canyons, crouching here,
in the shade, in your hand.  I won’t budge. 
When you leave these rocks behind
and your dull eyes soften suddenly into shine,
may the innocence of your stubborn love finally
rise from the pores of your hands like vapor,
prismatic through the sky, casting paths of wet light.

Rachel Kellum

Barnwood poetry magazine